Messiah and Me
Handel's Messiah . Both disdained for its popularity and loved for its beauty by musicians, it is a rite of passage for singers. I've had a fun and lucky history with it, going back nearly 40 years. My first meeting with it was singing "And the Glory of the Lord" at Christmas Vespers at Lafayette College in Colton Chapel in 1980. Another bass, Juan Jarrett, and I danced away in the back row as we sang, drawing joking ridicule from friends in the audience. My next meeting with Messiah was on a larger scale, four years later at Washington National Cathedral, with 300 singers (the Maryland Chorus and the Cathedral Choral Society), 100 baroque instrumentalists (the Smithsonian Concerto Grosso), soloists from Germany, England, Norway, and Finland, all under the direction of the former conductor of the National Symphony, Antal Dorati. The performances were a bicentennial recreation of a 1785 performance at Westminster Abbey to commemorate the 100th annive...